New construction
will include a three-story academic
building behind the school and a new
building for art and music classrooms.
The school’s open courtyard also will be
enclosed.

Renovations will
include a complete makeover of the
current three-story academic wing, which
will include space for career and
technical education programs currently
housed three blocks away at Abrookin
Career and Technical Center.

Other renovations
ahead include completely replacing the
school’s heating, ventilation and
air-conditioning systems, adding a new
200-seat balcony to the auditorium and
creating new space for
physical-education classes, including
jogging lanes in the main gym.

The fully
renovated and rebuilt facility will
expand the size of the current building
by about 50 percent. Today’s Albany High
building is 313,430 square feet; the new
and improved Albany High will be 561,400
square feet.

The failing roof
was replaced during the summer of 2016 and ground broken in October on
renovation of the pool building as progress unfolds in the remaking of
Albany High School.

Voters approved a
$179.9 million plan in February to renovate and rebuild the 41-year-old
building in four phases over the next nine years.
Click hereto learn more about events leading up to the vote.

What’s
happened since the vote

Summer 2016:
The first order of business was replacing Albany High’s failing roof.
Construction started and finished ahead of time.

Also over the
summer, architects met with faculty and staff to get more input on the
renovation and rebuilding plans, which call for four phases of
construction over a seven-year period.

October 2016:
The district began renovations on the high school’s pool facility. The
pool has been out of service since a large section of the outside wall
collapsed during a period of extreme cold in March 2015. Two months
later, voters approved a tax-free referendum to fully renovate the pool
building.

The $4 million
pool renovation is part of a $14 million package of repairs and upgrades
at 14 district buildings that has no tax impact.

Work on the pool building is scheduled to
finish in April. Albany High’s boys’ and girls’ swim teams, displaced
since the pool closure, will be back home next school year. The school
district also will reinstate a learn-to-swim program for second-graders
that has been put on hold while the pool is out of service.

November 2016:
Architects presented the Board of Education with an updated design
report. To date, designs call for:

Creating five
equal-sized smaller-learning communities, or academies

Establishing
a guidance and student-support suite in each academy with several
computers available for student use

Moving
thelibrary, or media
center, to the front of the building

A new
2½-story arts and music addition built adjacent to the existing
auditorium.

For
music, this includes:

A
band/orchestra room for up to 125 students

A
chorus room for up to 125 students

A
recording studio that doubles as a classroom

Three
individual practice rooms

One
ensemble practice room

Access to the auditorium for band and orchestra practice

For visual
and digital art, this includes

Three
studio-art rooms

Two
three-dimensional art rooms

One
two-dimensional art room

Group
spaces

A new
media art lab

A TV
production room

Creating a
small theater/performance space that could seat approximately 150
(in addition to providing balcony seating that will be added to the
current auditorium)

Revamping the
athletics facilities, including:

Creating
three gym stations in the main gymnasium

Creating two
gym stations in the rubber gymnasium

Creating a
new weight and fitness center with two gym stations

Building a
new indoor track

Updating the
dance studio and wresting room

Redesigning
more efficient space for career and technical programs

Locating
three nurses’ offices throughout the building

Adding three
special-needs classrooms in addition to what was previously planned

Adding a
third art classroom, a new media art lab and a TV production room

After additional tinkering, the completed plan
for Phase 1 will be submitted to the State Education for approval
sometime in 2017. Plans for subsequent phases will be submitted at a
later date.

Since the approval process takes about a year,
work on the first phase – construction of a new academic building behind
the current school – is slated to start in spring 2018 and finish in
August 2019.

The fourth and last phase of the entire
renovation and rebuilding project is scheduled to finish in the summer
of 2024.